


Jack and Jack

by Merick



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-09 19:31:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merick/pseuds/Merick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Torchwood is faced with finding a serial killer who haunts the dark alleys of Cardiff, a gruesome killer with a style that isn’t so unique, at least to Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jack and Jack

JPOV

How many years have I seen? 

Perhaps musing like that is better measured in decades, or even centuries? Perhaps millennia? 

No, that isn’t fair, I haven’t actually lived all those years; I’ve only been a guest in many of them. That comes from travelling with the Doctor; you go a great many places, in a great many times. 

And then there’s Torchwood, and the people I worked for, before they gave it such a nice, tidy name. Somehow I have been co-opted, or better, corrupted by this planet that has adopted me. Earth is as good a place as most civilizations can claim. Some peace, sprinkled with a serious dose of conflict, and the occasional coulis of alien intervention thrown on the plate. It’s a good thing I don’t scare easily. (It also helps that I really can’t die, not permanently at least. –Not to say that the various attempts don’t hurt, because they do, they hurt like hell on so many levels.-)

Every time I land in presents its own challenges. I try very hard to stay above them, and above the people I find myself thrown in with, but it never works. Perhaps I don’t try hard enough? At the heart of it all, no matter where I am, I want the companionship, and so I give in. Things really would be so much easier if I didn’t.

XXXXX

Owen Harper smacked the newspaper down, on his desk, with a crack of the tightly folded sheets. He hadn’t opened it; there really had been no need. The point he wanted to make was emblazoned, on the front page, in bold black letters, for everyone in the room to read.

“Cardiff Killer Strikes Again”

“Your point, Owen?” Jack Harkness asked casually, over the railing of the catwalk he was haunting, lording over the members of his team, all of them at work at their stations in the Hub, except for Owen, who was staring daggers at him, his hands on his hips.

“Same as last night, Jack.” Ianto commented, as he breezed by with his tray of mugs, a haze of steam rising from each one as he distributed them gracefully in front of their owners. Jack’s was last to be delivered, up the metal steps and handed to him, Ianto grasping it by the rim so Jack could take it by the handle where it wasn’t so hot.

“Can you not leave this in the hands of the local constabulatory, Owen? We agreed after reviewing the first two murders that this was a human matter.”

“You agreed Jack, and expected the rest of us to follow along,” Owen gestured out to the others, who were doing their best to keep their eyes averted from another confrontation, “Just like you always do.” Owen was in a particularly foul mood that day.

Wrinkling his nose, and making an exaggerated pouty face, which he knew would annoy Owen to no end, Jack turned his back on the assembled group, resting against the railing, breathing in the scent of the coffee Ianto had handed him. He knew he wouldn’t win the argument with Owen. In truth, he was beginning to wonder himself, about the type of monster, (and he used that term seriously), that would find pleasure in cutting people up like a butcher might. He sighed, feeling Ianto’s gaze on him. That boy knew more about his moods than Jack was willing to overtly acknowledge, and he reckoned Ianto knew what his next lines would be, even before he did. He spoke without turning around.

“Take Tosh and go and have a proper look at this new scene, Owen. See what you think.”

“Finally.” Owen muttered, slipping in his ear bud, making no attempt to disguise his disagreeable nature. Toshiko followed him without a word, adjusting her own device to fit properly, as she pulled her dark hair over it. Ianto watched them depart, not saying another word until they were well clear of the Hub. Only then did he turn and lean on the same rail as Jack.

“Do you think there might be something to this one, Jack?”

“Starting to sound a bit too much like that other case, Ianto. Now there’s a third? Time to bring some of our talents to the fore I think.” Jack mumbled cryptically, taking a thoughtful sip of the coffee and grimacing, wrinkling his forehead. He’d been trying to avoid letting his thoughts wander around this one, mostly because he wasn’t prepared for the implications of them.

Ianto knew when Jack was in a pensive mood, (amongst other moods, Jack didn’t make much of a secret of those). And he knew when he could question, and when it was better if he didn’t. Today was one of the “better if he didn’t” days, and so he gave Jack a curt nod, with half a smile curling up the right side of his lips, and went down to check on Gwen.

XXXXX

It wasn’t that Owen didn’t like Jack, or at least he knew deep down inside it wasn’t that. Only, it was just some times, he just wanted to shake the man to his senses. Bad enough he played most everything close to the vest (but didn’t hide that he was doing it), but his quiet reluctance to support Owen was beginning to make the other man very frustrated indeed. Not that Owen was going to leave Torchwood, nobody ever left Torchwood and remembered doing it. He was not about to be ret coned and given a false story about the last few years of his life. It was the futility of it all that swayed his moods so drastically. He didn’t really have much outside of Torchwood; because one night stands and pints at the local really weren’t a life, not in light of everything he had seen. He could put up with Jack Harkness for that. He wanted to believe his insistence had finally paid off, because he was out in the field with Tosh, even if they were looking over a crime scene that was ten hours old, give or take. Their tech could sort out more than the locals’ could, and Owen and Tosh were making the most of it.

“The body was found here.” Owen gestured for Tosh, the object of his outlining having been long since removed. “Throat slit, Y incision across her chest and down her abdomen; like an autopsy.”

“Anything missing?”

“Haven’t heard yet, but I’ll get you to pull up the coroner’s report when we get back to the Hub.” He glanced at his watch and made a mental calculation. “Should be on file by now.” 

Toshiko Sato looked around at the walkups that closed over them in the alleyway. She tried to take in every detail she could, as she passed her sensor pad over the area Owen had indicated. The crime scene was very much like the first two she had seen, a dark place, out of the way of street view cameras, and passers-by. It even smelt like death, she thought. And she wondered if the streets ever completely dried from the rain and the runoff and the damp. They had a glistening quality to them that wasn’t pretty at all. She’d trod through many nasty things working with Torchwood, but this time felt as if she needed to toss the shoes she was wearing into the bin as soon as she got home. There was just that kind of air about the place.

“You feel it too, don’t you, Owen?” She asked, examining his facial set.

“Yeah.” He mumbled as he swept up the area with one of his scanners. “Swear there was a piece of the rift here.”

“Is that possible?”

Owen shrugged. “Worth a look, don’cha think?”

“Yeah.” Tosh’s tone was a little guarded too; she hurried to finish up her own inspection, feeling the need to get away. “This place is different than the others.”

“Only because we got here sooner than the others I bet.” Their examination of the previous scenes had been cursory at best, long after the crimes had been committed. “This kind of stuff washes away in the sunlight.”

“How do you know that?” His comment had startled her, mostly because she’d had the same idea; she just hadn’t said it out loud.

“Just seems like it might. I don’t know.” Owen was edgy; She could see that in the tense muscles in his jaw. There was something otherworldly going on here, she could just tell, and it was time to get away from it and back to the Hub to sort it out, with Jack.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack had been watching the pair ever since they had returned from their excursion, but he hadn’t been making a show of it. Ianto had noticed, but he always noticed those types of things. And he didn’t mind the excuse to steal glances at Jack. His disquiet had been Ianto’s as well.

Tosh and Owen had been huddled around her computer workstation for a good hour, they’d taken more coffee from Ianto, but had offered nothing to him as any sort of hint as to what they were thinking. Gwen had purposely stayed away from the huddle; she wasn’t about to choose sides, however innocent her actions. She stole glances back and forth between Jack’s office and Tosh’s desk though, never quite managing to catch Jack doing the same. Only when Owen stabbed his finger at the monitor with a loud “yes!” was the uncomfortable silence of the room finally broken, and Gwen felt she had permission to join in the group. 

From his office, Jack stood from his chair and went out to the catwalk, slowly making his way over, knowing that Owen would wait to make any more pronouncements about his discovery until Jack was there to hear and see for himself.

“What have you found out?” Jack crossed his arms, in the impatient way he had of saying, “okay, I’m here now, let’s go”. Ianto liked to think of it as a bit of a pissing contest between Jack and Owen that played out regularly. He hung back a little ways, closer to Gwen than anyone else, also trying to remain on the neutral side of the equation.

“All three women who were killed had internal organs missing.”

Gwen wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“You got the autopsy reports then, Tosh?” Jack was suddenly leaning in a great deal closer than he had been, though as usual, his face was betraying none of the inner workings of his mind.

“I did.” She grinned a little and toggled through the pages on her computer screen. It hadn’t really taken much effort on her part, but accomplishing it, considering that Owen had asked her to do it, made her feel a little proud. The fact he had been standing so close to her, absorbed in the facts she had acquired, had left her just a wee bit giddy, not that she was about to acknowledge it to anyone else in the room.

“Besides having their throats slashed, the first one was missing her right kidney, the second part of her liver and right kidney, the third, the uterus.” Owen said it so matter of factly Gwen couldn’t help but shiver. She knew his medical background gave him that detachment, but it never ceased to frighten her when she heard him speak it out loud.

“Is there anything else they have in common Owen?” Jack had remained in the thick of the group, speaking with the same detachment as Owen. It made Gwen shudder again. Her emotional nature had gotten her into trouble before at Torchwood, but it was so hard to keep it in check, especially as she watched those two men, both of whom she had feelings for, feelings she tried to suppress, feelings that confused her as much as they excited her. She gritted her teeth and refocused on the important matters.

“The first two were last seen leaving pubs, in different areas of the city, the third was working the streets,” Owen’s euphemism for a prostitute, “and all of them were killed within blocks of where they were last seen.”

“So, do you think the crimes were premeditated or attacks of opportunity Owen?” Jack’s voice indicated he had an idea of his own, but wanted to hear Owen’s first.

“Could be both, but I tend towards the premeditation possibility.”

“Why?”

“Because to find a place that offered enough concealment might be had by chance in one case, but not in three.”

“I agree. The killer knew his locations well, knew how to avoid the cameras, and the pedestrian traffic. But it doesn’t mean that the victims themselves weren’t chosen at random.”

“Also true.” Owen and Jack were getting on a roll; the whole of the team could see it as the ideas played off each other. It was good; it was how they worked best.

“He could have been looking for “a type” as his victims, and just knew where to wait for them.”

“So you’re saying this person went out intent on killing someone? Didn’t matter who?” Ianto added his ideas, generally designed to open the floor discussion even further. It was one of his many talents. Jack suppressed a little grin at the sound of his voice. No matter what he showed outwardly, he had great respect for the team he had put together, and their analytical skills. 

“That’s the premise I think we should work with.” Jack answered.

“So what is his type then?” Ianto continued feeding the group.

“Have you found anything else they had in common, all three of them, besides the way they were killed?”

“Not yet.” Tosh murmured. “But now that we have the leave to continue?” She swiveled to Jack, eyebrows raised.

“Why do you think this is more than your typical psychopath, Tosh?”

“It was the way the scene felt Jack; it was otherworldly, there was just something in the air that felt ‘wrong’.” She tried to explain it, knowing that if any group in the world could understand what she was trying to communicate, this would be the one.

“Okay. Keep looking, tell me what you find.” With his words, Jack ordered them all to continue searching, not that the tone was dismissive. The order had another one of his secrets behind it, they all knew it, but only Ianto decided to pursue it, and Jack as he returned to his office, his mouth drawn up in tight line.

Shutting the door, Ianto confronted him as he often did, as Jack expected him to do. 

“So? What is it?”

“Just thinking about something, Ianto.” Jack sank into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest staring out the glass wall but not really seeing anything, or rather, not seeing anything that Ianto could.

“From your past? Or your future?”

“Past, but I’m not sure, and I don’t want to poison an investigation by making assumptions. At least not out loud.”

“I understand.”

Jack looked up at Ianto, standing by the door, hands locked behind his back, suit perfect, face neutral, eyes staring right back at him.

“I imagine you probably do, Ianto.” He let his head bob up and down slightly, and slowly exhaled, knitting his fingers together and resting them against his lips.   
“Is it all right if we don’t talk about it just yet, Ianto?”

“Of course.” Ever the efficient Welsh butler, Jack stared thankfully at the man, and pondered just going over to take a kiss from him. Something about doing that always made Jack feel more grounded, but he never let himself explore that feeling, or at least he didn’t often let himself explore it, except for some nights, when he stayed alone at the Hub, when his past transgressions demanded it.

“Jack?” The silence had unnerved Ianto.

Smiling, Jack tried to let the desire pass over him with a suppressed quiver in his chest.

“Sorry Ianto, it’s nothing. Go see what you can do to help the others, okay?” He let his hard features soften a little as he spoke with Ianto.

“Of course.” And Ianto did a little bow and turned smartly on polished black shoes leaving Jack behind.

As Jack watched the man leave, the idea of kissing him still lingered, and the idea of having more than that. He knew it wasn’t the way to solve any of the roiling in his gut at the situation, but he knew that the distraction, that the pressure of the soft, innocent mouth, however brief, would be welcome. He let him go anyways. He needed to focus on this series of murders, and sat back in his chair, reviewing the files Tosh had found, now called up on his own computer. He could have said the first two had the connection that they were coming out of a pub, even though they’d been different pubs. But the third one hadn’t been near a pub, she’d last been seen working her usual corner; at least according to police reports from her girlfriends on the street. But not one of them seemed to remember whom she might have gone off with, or where she had wandered on her own. There really was nothing overtly connecting them at all, two brunettes, numbers one and three, one blond, number two. One and two had regular jobs, office work, and retail, number three, well, not regular he guessed. They lived in three separate neighborhoods, all in walk up flats. The unhappy thoughts he had eluded to with Ianto, kept pushing to the fore, as much as he tried to find any other explanation besides the one that was pounding at him.

He made up his mind then to go and see the three scenes himself, and to take Ianto. If there was ever a time he needed to be grounded, that was it.  
“Ianto!”


End file.
